ScottVee Gaming

Here is an odd diversion ... due to home repair work, we ended up at a laundromat downtown.  After the previous trip involved heat, restless legs and some digestive trouble, I lost sleep the night before trying to figure out how to make this trip more sufferable. So made a "surprise" stop at Barnes & Noble on the way, to pick up two books of puzzles. These books have always been a reliable way to while away an hour or two, full of odd puzzles and activities.  However, they also tend to boldly include "Games" in their titles or splash pages even though none of the activities really qualify as games.  But it made me wonder about the dividing line.  Considering the variety of solitaire print-and-play games I have tried, is there really a big difference between a one-player game and a good puzzle? I had seen Games magazine over the years, of course, going back to the 80s.  Hard to imagine not knowing about it, as a lifelong games hobbyist.  But when I think...

 I got a few games in the past week.  Some have been written up already, but here is the batch: Cat Lady is yet another card game with cute cats everywhere.  This one is a bit more involved than Scram.  You work from a 3x3 grid of face-up cards, where each turn, each player can take a whole row or column, then move the cat token to block a whole row or column from the next player's turn.   You can get cat cards or food cards.  The food cards get traded in for food cubes, which go towards feeding those cats.  There are also cat toys, catnip and cat costumes, which score at the end of the turn.  And there are Lost Cat cards: you can trade two Lost Cats in for 2 VP (victory points) or one stray cat.  Each stray cat has a special power like "get 2 VP for each black cat you feed".  Here we are, halfway through a hand. The main 3x3 grid is in the middle, stray cats below them.  My cat cards are on the left, Ann's are on the right....

It was Anne's birthday, and we were out in the back patio of a relative, when one of her cousins out of the blue picked up the deck of cards that was sitting there and asked, "Have you ever played Nine Cards Down?" Oddly, no.  In my nearly 50 years of gaming and collecting rules of games and game history notes, I had never heard of that one.  I know that each family has a serious card player or two with a favorite game, but the list of common games is really quite small.  We play 500 Rummy and Gin Rummy, and Anne used to play Canasta with some friends.  I have seen some cribbage boards sitting on tables or counters in several houses in the pandemic year.  Then there are Hearts and Spades.  And Solitaire, but again, almost everyone plays the Klondike style even though there are a few dozen others available.  Let's just skip Poker, just no.  And that's just about it for household card games.  Nevermind all the apps.  I mean real cards. Her...